Eagle Nebula (M16): Hubble Images & Pillars of Creation

The Pillars of Creation are located in the Eagle Nebula (M16). In 1995, the world was astounded by the beautiful Hubble Space Telescope images of the Eagle Nebula, a cloud of interstellar gas and dust 7,000 light-years from Earth.

the “Pillars of Creation.” The three columns contain the materials for building new stars, and stretch four light-years out into space. Newborn stars outside of the famous Hubble image are responsible for sculpting the pillars, using ultraviolet light to burn away some of the gas within the clouds.

In 2010, images of the pillars taken by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory peered inside the pillars to reveal only a handful of x-ray sources. Because new stars are supposed to be a hot bed of x-ray activity, scientists speculated that the star-forming days of the pillars were coming to an end.

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I am currently living in Harlingen Texas in the Rio Grande Valley located in deep south Texas near the Gulf of Mexico. I stayed in the Philippines for seven months, from May to December 2012. I learned a lot about the people, culture, food and language in the Philippines and I hope to return and retire someday!